Three former colleagues of Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross are suing him and his former company for allegedly pocketing millions in improper fees he had charged to clients, Forbes reports.
In the lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday, former WL Ross & Co. employees allege that Ross charged at least $48 million in management fees and funds to partners who manage investment funds. According to Ross’s former colleagues, the charges should have been made to outside investors, not those in charge of managing funds.
The company previously paid a $2.3 million settlement to the SEC over a probe into its charging of fees and investment practices, The Hill informs.
David Storper, at one time the company’s second-in-command, is currently involved in litigation against Ross for allegedly stealing his stake in the company after he left. Storper is suing alongside David Wax and Pamela Wilson, two former longtime employees who worked closely with Ross.
On Tuesday, a group of Senate Democrats wrote a letter asking the Commerce Department’s inspector general to open an investigation into Ross’s compliance with the department’s ethics guidelines and whether he properly divested his business interests before taking office.
The request asks the inspector general to obtain an accurate figure of Ross’s wealth and whether he had misrepresented financial assets, after reports of discrepancies in his reports on his personal wealth and business ties to top Kremlin officials in Russia, The Hill adds.
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